


Little Girl Green

by IreneADonovan



Category: X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies), X-Men (Comicverse)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Still Have Powers, Canon Disabled Character, Charles Xavier has a Ph.D in Adorable, Charles in a Wheelchair, Co-Parenting, Erik has Issues, Erik is Crushing Harder than a 12-year Old Girl, F/M, Goes AU After the Beach, Kid Fic, M/M, Minor Character Death, dadneto
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-15
Updated: 2018-02-14
Packaged: 2018-11-01 02:01:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,712
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10912035
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IreneADonovan/pseuds/IreneADonovan
Summary: Erik realizes what an idiot he's been and that he really does love Charles. So he returns to the mansion to beg forgiveness but is just in time to see Moira kiss Charles. Misreading the situation, he flees, gets drunk, and has a one-night stand. Four years later, he learns he has a daughter and that her mother is dead. Thinking he can't possibly raise her, he takes her to Charles' fledgling school, sure Charles will take her in. Charles agrees with one condition: Erik must remain at the mansion and help raise her until she's of school age. Erik reluctantly agrees. Over the course of those two years, Erik and Charles start finding their way back to each other...





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [orfeo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/orfeo/gifts).



> This is for orfeo, who won one of my easter eggs. Hope you like it.
> 
> I know this chapter's kind of short, but it's just a prologue...

 

**PROLOGUE**  


The mansion hadn't changed much in the last few months. When he'd left, it had been autumn, just edging toward winter, the trees changing from green to golds and reds. Those trees were bare now in late winter, and an icy crust of snow clung to the ground.

Erik crept toward the mansion, using the tree trunks for cover. The grounds immediately around the mansion were treeless, so he couldn't yet get as close as he wanted. Those grounds had been cleared of snow, which would make his tracks less obvious, but the lack of cover was problematic.

As he watched, two figures came around from the side, a woman pushing a man in a wheelchair. A wheelchair? Charles?

Erik fought the urge to rush forward. Was this what he had done? Crippled the man he loved? And he did love him. He just wished he'd understood that sooner.

Charles probably hated him now, and Erik knew he deserved that hatred. He'd taken Raven and left Charles bleeding on the beach. He knew he should leave, but Charles commanded his attention, like he had from the night they'd met.

His face was thinner, more lined and careworn. His blue eyes, while no less vivid a shade, looked weary, even world-weary.

Moira, for the woman was indeed Moira, stopped near the front entrance and circled to the front of Charles' chair. They spoke quietly for a minute, then Moira leaned down in a way that struck Erik as condescending, though Charles didn't appear bothered.

They talked another minute, then Charles leaned forward, his lips meeting Moira's in a tender kiss.

Erik turned and fled.

**~xXx~**  


He wound up in a bar somewhere in the Bronx, not even sure how he got there, sitting on a bar stool, drinking some really bad whiskey and trying to erase Charles from his mind.

He was somewhere just past comfortably lit and on his way to utterly blitzed when the gal seated two stools down caught his eye. She gazed at him boldly, downing the remains of her drink with a tilt of her head that called attention to the creamy skin and long lines of her neck.

The last thing he wanted after seeing Charles kiss Moira, after learning he'd crippled the man he loved, was to have sone woman try to pick him up. 

He tossed back the rest of his whiskey, watching the woman, contemplating. Maybe it wasn't what he wanted, but it just might be what he needed. Bury himself to the hilt in a woman, drive away the thoughts of azure eyes and cherry lips and chestnut hair that fell in soft waves.

He set his glass on the bar, locked eyes with the woman. She was pretty enough, with short gold-brown hair that curled under on the ends and grey-green eyes. She also wore a wedding ring, but Erik didn't care if she didn't. “I'm Suzanna” she said.

“Call me Max,” Erik said.”


	2. Chapter 2

He felt the pulse from a hundred miles away. He would have felt it from a thousand. A wave of magnetic energy, with a familiar signature, though he couldn't place why it seemed so.

He was in far northern California, near the Oregon border -- it was a good place for a wanted man to hide, quiet and remote. The pulse had come from a spot east and a little bit north, even farther into the backcountry. It faded quickly, but it left an echo, a ghost he could track.

He stepped out of the rough cabin where he'd spent the last month, climbed into his Jeep, set out over tracks that barely qualified as roads, weaving his way toward the pulse's source.

He was maybe halfway there when he came into a clearing that overlooked a small valley. A lazy plume of smoke rose from a point beyond, and he could sense a large mass of refined metals. A plane, crashed at the pulse's origin point.

He was certainly far too late to find survivors. He considered turning around, but curiosity drove him onward.

The terrain grew more treacherous as he drew near -- a steep hillside covered in loose rock. He'd have to hike the last couple of miles.

He picked his way through the rocks and to the crest of the hill. The plane, a private jet, lay in pieces just beyond. Most of it was twisted and smoldering, but one section of fuselage appeared nearly intact

Erik scrambled to it and peered inside. A green-haired toddler, still strapped into her seat, stared back at him, then smiled and stretched out her hands.

Erik surveyed the scene beyond her. A woman and a man lay in the aisle, bodies twisted, clearly dead. With a jolt, Erik realized he knew the woman -- Sarah, Suzie, something. She'd been the woman who'd picked him up in the Bronx that night they'd both been looking for a few hours of oblivion. She'd been married -- was the man beside her her husband?

That had been more than three years ago. He glanced back toward the toddler, mental tumblers falling into place. A child with an obvious mutation. A magnetic pulse. A toddler, surely not even three. Could it really be? He studied the girl, who gazed up at him with eyes the shifting blue-grey-green of his own.

Well, fuck.

He approached the girl, unbuckled her seat belt, using his body to block the view of her mother as he lifted her from her seat. “C'mon, sweetheart, let's get you out of here.”

The trek back to the Jeep was much harder with the little girl in his arms. He kept up a stream of conversation to distract her, nonsense stuff about the weather and the trees and whatever else came to mind. It seemed to work, as she stayed quiet in his arms.

The sun was setting by the time he arrived at the Jeep, and had it been just him, he would have just hunkered down and waited for morning, but he wasn't going to do that to his daughter. So he strapped her in and levitated the Jeep above the trees.

What was he going to do with her? The life of a fugitive -- some would brand him a terrorist -- was no life for a little girl. Where could he take her that she would be safe? A crazy idea began to take shape in his mind as they skimmed above the treetops.

Charles. Charles had opened a school for mutants. The man hated him now, but surely he wouldn't turn away a child in need, not even Magneto's daughter.

“Well, kid, it looks like we're going to Westchester.”

“Lorna. My name's Lorna.”

“Lorna, then.” He couldn't help but smile. He had a daughter.

**~xXx~**

Charles was _not_ happy to see him, glaring up at him through the open door. “I'd ask you why you were here,” he said, gaze shifting to Lorna, asleep in Erik's arms, “but it seems obvious.”

His cherry-red lips set in a hard line, and he continued to block the doorway as he considered. Finally, reluctantly, he backed up. “Put her in one of the empty bedrooms on the second floor then come to my study. We need to talk.”

Masterpiece of understatement. Erik carried Lorna upstairs and tucked her into a bed. It had been a long, hard cross-country trip, and both of them were cranky and exhausted. But he had to face Charles before he could hope to sleep.

Lorna stirred as he stroked her soft, flyaway hair. “Sleep, _Liebchen_. Papa won't be far.”

He descended the stairs and entered Charles' study. The room had changed little in three years, save for the missing chairs, one at the chessboard, the other at Charles' desk. It still felt wrong, seeing him in that damnable wheelchair, that tangible reminder of all that had broken between them.

Charles was waiting, watching him warily.

A decanter of scotch and two cut-glass tumblers sat by the chessboard. “I thought we could play while we talked.”

Erik took his seat. The board was already set, and Charles had given him white. “Just like old times.”

“Hardly,” Charles replied dryly.

Erik poured himself a generous tumbler of scotch, took a long swallow. It went down smooth as silk, kindled a pleasant fire in his belly. He sipped a bit more, said, “You always did have the best taste in scotch.”

“But not in men, it seems.”

Ouch. But Erik knew he deserved it. Wordlessly he considered his opening move, pushed a pawn forward.

Charles opened with a knight. “So the girl -- she's your daughter?”

Erik nodded. “She has my eyes and my power, plus I knew her mother at the right time.”

“She's two?”

“More like two-and-a-half.” He advanced another pawn.

He could see Charles doing the math. Just a few months after Cuba. “Where's her mother now?”

“Dead. Plane crash. And I think Lorna might have caused it. I felt this magnetic pulse, and when I tracked it to its source, there was the plane and Lorna.”

Charles poured himself a glass of scotch. “So why did you bring her here?”

“You know why.”

“I need to hear it from your own lips.”

“I brought her here so she'd be safe. At your school.”

“She's far too young. And the school year is almost over.”

“Surely you can make an exception. A life on the run is no life for a child.”

Those sapphire eyes studied him intently, expression unreadable. Charles took another sip of his drink, came to a decision. “All right. She can stay, on one condition.”

Erik knew he would accept Charles' terms. He had no other options. He took a swallow of scotch as he waited for Charles to continue.

“You will remain here with her until she's of school age.”

Fuck. That was impossible. “I'm a wanted fugitive.”

“I can make sure no one finds you. Charles placed a hand to his temple, wiggled his fingers in a familiar gesture. “Your daughter just lost her mother. I won't have her grow up without her father.”

Charles had him, and they both knew it. He nodded, a faint, grim smile on his lips, then he reached out and tipped his king over, conceding defeat.


End file.
